


Fever Dream

by Neyiea



Series: Ravenous [3]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Eldritch Abominations, Horror Elements, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Stephen King's IT References, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 12:06:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24969412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: They wake up and Bruce is gone. There is a link, stretched to the point of breaking, which connects them. They use it to call him home. He resists their influence, he doesn't return, they become more vicious without him. Illness can weaken the mind as well as the body, though, and when they are given an opportunity for more they greedily snatch it up.Half a world away Bruce falls into a dream. In the dream, he remembers.When he wakes, he forgets. But he doesn't forget everything.
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Jeremiah Valeska/Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Series: Ravenous [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714627
Comments: 19
Kudos: 126





	Fever Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I hammered this out real quick. I have been in A Mood, lately. Nothing like revisiting old works to make your mind spin away from what you _should_ be writing to focus on something new instead.
> 
> xoxo

They call out to him, trying to urge him home, home, faster, faster, before the time comes where they must sleep again. They speak to him in his dreams through the link that connects them, but he has grown stronger and more resilient in their time apart. He is not easily swayed by nightmares or commands the way other humans are. He is not entirely as he should be, with their dark influence tainting his frail humanity. 

They become even more vicious without him to focus their sweeter, softer attentions on. Their presence has always made crime and hate spike along with the number of missing people. Humans were so easy to sway; so easy to terrify and twist and turn into puppets. They bring out the worst in them, they urge them on, they feast upon them, they forget them.

Blackgate riots, Arkham breakouts, waves of corruption on every level that they can manage; through opening doors that should have stayed locked and leaving weapons that should have never made it in and sowing seeds of doubt and anger and hatred. They do it all, but still Bruce does not come home to save his precious city from the turmoil that they are the root cause of.

They eat and eat, and they are not satisfied.

They have never been truly satisfied—there was always an emptiness gnawing in the depths of them. Empty, empty, a black void that needed more, more—but there had been a moment of satiation when their ravenous hunger had abated and they were able to savour that which they feasted upon.

They want him, want him, want him. Again, again, again.

Forever, forever, forever.

They call, and he does not come, but he must feel it. The link that binds them is stretched too thin and is weaker than it should be after one sleep, but it still exists, and they will not let it snap.

They scheme and they plot and they stir up as much fear as they are able; the city-wide curfew is instigated again, news travels quickly that anyone on the street after a certain time disappears never to be seen again. They drag people, kicking and screaming and terrified out of their pathetic minds, down into the darkness that they have made their home, not caring if their laughter echoes off of buildings, not caring if the screams of their prey carry. No help will come for them, and their cries only make them that much more powerful.

Fear builds up in the city like steam collecting under the lid of a boiling pot, until even the most hardened criminals and influential socialites who had once thought they were untouchable know that even they are not safe from whatever new ~~old, ancient~~ terrible thing is lurking in the shadows.

They feed and feed, until one day something—

—wonderful, terrible, spectacular—

—happens, and they feel resistance lessening. 

Half a world away, unbeknownst to them, Bruce Wayne is sick.

Half a world away, evident in the greatest of ways to them, Bruce Wayne’s will begins to bend under the combined weight of their relentless, adoring influence. 

It is not exactly what they want—him with them, him between them, him, him, him—but they’ll take what they can get.

x-x-x

Bruce stirs from an uneasy half-sleep; he’d pushed himself too hard the past few days and now he is paying a price for it. His body needs rest, but he can’t seem to relax enough. His dreams are so often plagued with thoughts of home, with longing to return, with half-remembered voices. He never recalls the dreams in their entirety, but they leave him feeling uneasy.

Something wanted him in Gotham.

Something was trying very hard to lure him back.

And what if, in his current state, he was too weak to resist whatever it was?

That thought, the main reason for his inability to get the rest that he needs, makes him groan, and a dry cough wracks his feverish body as he pushes into a sitting position. He forces himself into activity in the hopes that he’ll truly exhaust himself so that sleep will come easier, and when he settles back down again he hopes that he won’t dream.

~~He knows that he will.~~

Loneliness, that is what he recognizes first as he is dragged under.

He is lonely, he feels like—Like he’s alone inside of a haunted house, but—

He is in his home; in familiar halls with familiar lighting and familiar doors. 

—is it really haunted, if he is the ghost that resides there?

He stands in front of a closed door. He is dreaming, he knows this dream, hasn’t he had it before? His hand is smaller than it should be, less callused. He is young and he is alone because Alfred is not here with him because Bruce pushed him away.

But he’s not really alone, is he? Because he—He is being watched. He senses it, somehow. The hair on the back of his neck raises, he breaks out into goosebumps. He does not hear anything. Does not see anything. But something is there, lingering just beyond his senses. Watching. Waiting. Wanting. 

~~Running the tips of their claws through the ends of his curls.~~

He reaches for the handle even though he thinks he shouldn’t, compelled by dream logic ~~or by outside forces~~ to follow a path he had taken before. The door swings open before he can touch it, and his breath catches.

There is nothing, there is nothing. Nothing behind him and nothing in front of him. This is not how the dream went—

The ground falls out from under his feet and he screams as he swiftly descends into darkness. Around him thousands of bats are flying, but they are not enough to bring him back up into the light. They cannot carry him. They cannot save him. He falls until his body is caught by something that gives but does not break under his weight.

A net, he thinks at first, but the texture is wrong, and when he moves his limbs the strands stick to him, as if they want to keep him. A web.

He is caught, trapped, but he will not allow himself to sit and wait to be attacked. He slowly frees himself, and above him there are—

Unfamiliar, alien stars.

But he’s seen these patterns before, hasn’t he?

Something about them brings back memories—wet kisses and sharp teeth and cold, cold hands—and even though his mind whirrs and urges him to continue he finds himself going still. His heartbeat begins to calm, his breathing levels out, the unease lingering in his mind drifts away like it had never been there at all.

He knows this darkness. He knows these stars. He doesn’t remember how, but he does.

“I know you’re there,” he says into the inky blackness. It’s cowardly to hide in the dark, he thinks. A wave of déjà vu crashes over him, and before he can attempt to make heads or tails of why he would feel such a way he sees a flash of colour in the distance.

An acidic green than makes his blood rush.

He remembers—

Kisses and teeth and nails and skin and the feeling of being pressed between two bodies. Possessed. Owned. Theirs. He remembers feeling _good._

“Come out, please?” He tries. He invites it closer. He allows it closer. He unknowingly gives it more power. “I want you to.”

Dozens—or maybe hundreds—of green lights flash before disappearing and Bruce blinks, trying to solve a mystery when he’s not entirely certain he can trust his own eyes, but when he feels breath on his neck all of his thought processes seem to freeze to a sudden halt. 

“You came,” he says softly.

He’s glad.

“Oh, darlin’,” a voice that he knows rasps. “We’d never let you be lonely.”

There is a chest against his back, there are hands on his hips, hands on his face, a thigh between his legs. He knows this. He knows them.

“I’ve missed you,” he says into the dark.

He hadn’t realized that he was missing them until this moment. His chest hurts, his heart aches. How could he have forgotten to miss them?

“Precious thing,” the voice from the one in front of him starts. Bruce can’t make out his face. “We’ve missed you, too.” 

He ~~It~~ kisses him and it feels familiar, right. In a way it feels like coming home. 

“Why did you go?” The voice from behind demands. Hot breath gusts along his neck and Bruce shudders. “You shouldn’t have gone.”

I’m sorry, he thinks, but he cannot speak, so he reaches back and threads a hand into hair that he somehow knows is a coppery red, and he hopes that they forgive him. 

Kissing, kissing, kissing. When one stops the other starts, and Bruce’s mouth feels bruised and swollen even before they start involving their teeth. Sharp points dig into him, make him jump and squirm and shudder between them. Hands rove across his thighs and his chest and his waist and his neck. So quickly that it feels as though there are more than two sets of hands between them.

His heart lurches. Too many hands, too many teeth—

“Shhh,” the one from behind whispers into his ear as his hands delve low on Bruce’s abdomen. “You don’t have to be afraid. We’d never hurt you for the sake of hurting you.”

_What’s a little maiming between lovers?_

“I’m not afraid.” He bucks into the hand laying over his cock. He feels feverish. “I want to see you. Let me see you. You can see me, can’t you? It’s not fair.” 

They chuckle. Such different laughter merging into one ominous sound, if Bruce weren’t so dizzy with want he might feel anxious.

The shadows abate slightly. He is not in an underground cave, he is not underneath stars that he recognizes and has forgotten. He is underneath them, pinned to the silky sheets of his bed, and he can see their faces.

He knows their faces.

He opens his mouth. Their names are on the tip of his tongue, he can feel it, he knows it, he knows them, but the sound doesn’t come. He chokes on the words instead, and a metallic taste floods his mouth.

“You shouldn’t try to say our true names,” one of them says. “The way you are now, it will only hurt you.”

True names, he thinks hazily. He doesn’t remember ever being told other names.

“Jerome,” he says instead. “Jeremiah.”

“That’s right,” Jerome praises, looming in close. “That’s right.”

He whispers something in Bruce’s ear. The language is malevolent in some innate way, and it is nothing like Bruce can ever recall hearing before. Microphone feedback rings in his head and makes him want to cover his ears. Jeremiah soon leans in and does the same in his other ear.

“We told them to you as you were sleeping,” Jeremiah tells him, cold hands slipping up underneath Bruce’s shirt. 

“I’m sleeping now,” he recalls distantly. This wasn’t real. The floor of his house couldn’t crumble beneath his feet, he couldn’t fall down into a pit filled with bats, monsters with too wide smiles and too many teeth weren’t real. He was older, now, than he was in the dream. Five years had passed since he pushed Alfred away—His brow furrows.

Five years, he thinks. There’s a spark of realization, but he can’t seem to unravel the thought fully. Five years, five years, five years. 

A hand settles against his cheek.

“Stay with us,” Jerome tells him. “Don’t get lost in your head. If you do we might not be able to find you again. Then all we’ll be able to do is send messages like we have been; shots in the dark.” And then he is kissing Bruce again, and his cycling thoughts ~~a cycle, a cycle, a five-year cycle~~ settle. 

Nails rake against his skin, fabric tears and falls away. Bruce aches, but not because he’s in pain.

Cool fingers press past his lips, nudging pointedly against his tongue. Bruce sucks them deeper into his mouth; he feels hot, hot, hot. He’s sweating and flushed and his throat is dry, but that doesn’t seem to matter because Jeremiah is looking down at him like he would happily lay the entire world at Bruce’s feet.

“We dreamt of you,” he says. “We missed you. We need you. We love you.”

Bruce gasps around the fingers in his mouth. Then everything flips on its axis. He is laying overtop of Jeremiah, legs splayed out on either side of his hips, and Jeremiah’s fingers are still in his mouth but it is not _his_ fingers that Bruce’s attention is focused on.

His hands grip tightly onto Jeremiah’s arms as he’s breached. It’s too much, too fast, too full.

“We love you,” Jerome croons from behind him, pressing in deeper and deeper. Bruce chokes on the fingers in his mouth, he doesn’t know whether he should push back or move forward. His cock twitches, oozing onto Jeremiah’s belly. “No one tells you that enough, do they? Poor thing. We’ll have to pick up the slack.” There are teeth on his neck—

—teeth on his neck. Splitting him open and making him bleed, they’d seemed so hungry for it, for him, for everything—

And Bruce moans as those sharp ~~too sharp, too sharp to be human~~ teeth dig into him. Jerome’s fingers feel slicker as he pulls out, and when he presses back in the way is tight but smooth, like Bruce’s body was made for this, made for them.

_It’s the only thing that makes sense._

Jerome behind him, Jeremiah below him. He feels dizzy and good and like he belongs here, in the space between them. Jeremiah’s fingers slide out of his mouth to tangle in Bruce’s hair, and Bruce’s mouth stays open as he’s pulled into a kiss. Wet, wetter than any kiss he’s had with anyone else, but this was the way that they were; sharp, dangerous, slick, hungry, hungry, hungry.

“We’ve missed you so much,” Jeremiah pants against him.

“We’ll fill you up so good,” Jerome promises as he drags his teeth along the line of Bruce’s spine, and even though Bruce knows what’s coming he still can’t keep himself from gasping as a long tongue pushes in alongside the fingers.

“Jerome,” he gasps into Jeremiah’s mouth. He shuts his eyes, overwhelmed with the weight if their combined attention. Jeremiah’s hand is twisting in his hair and curling over his cock, Jerome’s nails are digging into the skin of his thighs as he eats him out as if he’s starved for it. He can feel his skin break, he almost thinks he can smell the blood in the air, and around him the twins shudder. When he opens his eyes again he sees—

A face that is familiar but not familiar. Stark white skin, painted lips, lined eyes.

“Jeremiah,” he chokes.

His eyes—those eerie eyes ~~how many times had Bruce thought he’d spotted those eyes only for them to disappear? How many times had those eyes focused on him without him realizing it?~~ —look up at Bruce with open admiration. 

“That’s right, Bruce,” he says. His hand in Bruce’s hair trails down his back. Down, down. “It’s still us, precious thing.”

Bruce’s heart lurches. He can feel Jerome pull away only for two of Jeremiah’s fingers to press inside immediately. He feels caught, trapped, owned. Jeremiah’s fingers aren’t able to go deep, but the way that they hook inside of him make Bruce’s hips rock, chasing the feeling of being filled just as much as he chases the feeling of grinding his cock against skin. Jerome looms directly behind him, pressing kisses and grazing teeth against Bruce’s shoulders, dragging his tongue down the curve of Bruce’s back.

Slipping a finger in alongside Jeremiah’s.

Bruce’s mouth falls open, a high, needy sound slipping out of him at the sudden pressure. 

The fingers retreat. He’s twisted around. Jeremiah’s cock presses a hot line against the small of his back.

He sees a face that is familiar but not familiar. Raised lines like scars extending his smile and encircling the dark skin surrounding his eyes. 

“Jerome,” he rasps.

There’s something about their faces; about the way patterns and colours and scars bring even more attention to their expressive features and wide smiles. They look like—they look like—

~~Clowns.~~

The thought will not come. He clenches his eyes shut, and Jerome peppers kisses across his face.

“Stop thinking. We don’t know how much time we have. Stop thinking. What if we can’t find you again?”

He opens his eyes, and Jerome’s face is the way it should be. He doesn’t understand—

He doesn’t have to understand.

Fingers grip at his thighs, sharp nails ~~more like claws than nails~~ dig even deeper into him as his legs are pulled apart. Underneath him Jeremiah shifts, and Bruce can feel his cock nudging up against where he’s wet and open.

“You’re going too fast,” he says, but he can’t seem to voice it like a protest. “It’s going to hurt.”

They’d made him hurt, before.

But they’d also made him feel so, so good.

“Nonsense,” Jeremiah tells him. His nails break skin as he pulls Bruce’s legs further apart. He inhales sharply, chasing the scent of something, Bruce rises and falls with the motion of his chest. Bruce is spread open, displayed, dreadfully empty. Bruce _wants._

“This is a dream,” Jerome says. He lays his palms on Bruce’s knees, and one of Jeremiah's hands slips away. Bruce can feel his knuckles graze against him as Jeremiah lines the head of his cock against his rim. “It’s not real.”

Bruce is burning up. The thick, wet tip of something bigger than a tongue, bigger than three fingers, is nudging against him and leaving a hot, sticky trail behind. Bruce’s mouth waters as he abruptly remembers what it had been like to have Jeremiah in his mouth.

“It feels real,” he rasps. Jerome chuckles and leans in to press a series of kisses from the inside of Bruce’s knee all the way up his thigh. His mouth presses over broken skin, and he leaves bloody kiss-marks with his freshly painted lips. Bruce distantly thinks that it’s both gruesome and beautiful. 

“Just you wait, Bruce, until you’re home again,” Jeremiah starts.

“This will be nothing compared to that,” Jerome finishes.

Jeremiah begins to press inside. Bruce’s breathing becomes quick and shallow, hitching with every slight upward movement of Jeremiah’s hips. It’s rough, tight, agonizingly slow. Bruce instinctively tries to press his legs together when it starts to feel like too much but can’t, not with their hands still keeping him open. One of his hands grips desperately onto Jerome’s wrist for stability, the other reaches back to dig into Jeremiah’s hair. 

“Jeremiah,” his voice is high, weak. “Jeremiah, Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah shifts again, pushing himself into a seated position, his chest pressing up against Bruce’s back and forcing him to move upwards, too. Bruce sinks further down on his cock in a way that makes them both moan. 

“So cute,” Jerome murmurs. One of his hands begins to trail down, and Bruce’s breath catches in his throat. “So puffy and pink.” A fingertip grazes a ring around Bruce’s hole and his muscles clench. Jeremiah hisses something under his breath and he presses biting kisses along Bruce’s shoulder, neck, and the side of his face. “Slick with spit and stretched wide open.” His hand lifts to press down against Bruce’s cock, and without meaning to Bruce clenches around Jeremiah again. It makes him feel sore, and full, and strangely small. A delicate wisp somehow caught between a pair of covetous, lascivious, possessive ~~monsters~~ brothers. ~~How many people had they had between them before?~~ “The sight of you like this is almost enough to make me feel glutted. How do you feel?”

“Jerome,” he groans, rocking up against Jerome’s hand. When his hips fall he impales himself further on Jeremiah’s cock. “I feel...” He rocks up again, comes back down again. “I feel…” His fingers spasm, grip loosening, he can’t seem to hold onto anything anymore.

“Tell us, Bruce,” Jeremiah rasps, nails digging into the skin of Bruce’s hips. “Tell us how good we make you feel.” He rolls his hips up hard as he roughly pulls Bruce down, and Bruce keens as he thrusts all the way inside.

“So good,” he assures, the shadows in the room are deepening as if lights are being snuffed out. Jeremiah’s arms curl possessively around his waist. “You both make me feel so good.”

Jerome raises up to a kneeling position in order to kiss him and Bruce can’t even think to be disgusted by where his mouth has been, buzzing thoughts filtering into nothing but a hazy acknowledgment of pleasure. When Jerome pulls back he presses his fingers deep into Bruce’s mouth and Bruce purses his lips around them and sucks, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. Underneath him Jeremiah lurches, and Bruce is helplessly caught up in the movement.

“You’re doing so well,” Jerome praises. “You’re so beautiful.” He draws his fingers back, and Bruce feverishly wonders if he means to dig his hands into Bruce’s hair and make him bend down. Bruce squirms, feeling breathless and secured in place; anchored by the cock inside of him. He ruminates on the heady idea of Jerome fucking his mouth. “You realize, don’t you, that you belong with us?”

He nods and Jerome leans in to kiss him again, though he scrapes his teeth against Bruce’s lips more than anything else. It makes his swollen mouth tingle.

“Tell us how much you’ve missed us,” Jerome demands as he presses a slick finger in alongside Jeremiah’s cock. It’s too much. It’s not enough. Bruce feels on the verge of losing himself. “Tell us you’ll come home.”

“I’ve missed you so much,” Bruce manages through a whine. “But I can’t come home yet.”

“Why not?” Jeremiah’s voice is rough, his arms wrap even tighter around Bruce. His teeth ~~too sharp, too sharp, the teeth of a predator~~ prick against Bruce’s overheated skin. 

“Why not,” Jerome hisses between clenched teeth. His eyes look like they’re glowing. They’re caustic. Beautiful. Awful. Bruce could melt in his gaze if he held it for too long. “You belong with us. You know you do.” His finger pushes in roughly, and Bruce whines at the feeling. “You were meant for us.” His other hand grips Bruce’s cock, rough fingertips sliding around him. “You need to come home.”

“Come home to us. Come home to Gotham.” One of Jeremiah’s hands presses firmly against the skin below Bruce’s bellybutton. Bruce jerks, head falling back against his shoulder. Bruce wonders, dizzy and burning, if Jeremiah would be able to feel his own cock if he pressed down hard enough.

“We’ll never let you be alone again.” The tip of Jerome’s finger glides in a semi-circle, stretching Bruce even wider. Bruce’s mouth falls open, he can barely breathe, he feels trapped, he feels like he can’t move, his heart is racing dangerously fast. Jerome’s eyes are still glowing. Bruce feels strangely compelled to stare into his eyes even though his vision is starting to blur. He feels like ~~he’s in danger, danger, danger~~ his fuzzy mind is swirling with thoughts of going home. He feels like giving them what they want. It wouldn’t be so bad, to give in. 

He wants to go home, too.

But he—

He inhales sharply, his eyes close.

—He’s not ready. Not yet. 

“We love you, Bruce.” Jeremiah presses a wet kiss to his jaw.

“We love you more than anyone else ever has.” Jerome’s lips graze a fleeting path over his heart. Bruce’s eyes flutter back open so that he can look at him. “We love you more than another human ever could.”

“I know,” he warbles. They’re telling the truth. He knows they are. ~~A human, he thinks. Inhuman, he thinks. Too wide smiles, too many teeth. Monsters watching him from the shadows.~~ “I know, I know.”

“Then come back to us. It’s where you’re meant to be.” Jerome’s slick tongue glides up his cheek, and Bruce belatedly realizes that he’s started crying. Another finger is thrust inside of him, and Bruce—

Rocks and shudders as much as he’s able with Jeremiah gripping onto him so tightly. His muscles flutter and clench, milking Jeremiah’s twitching cock. Tears are streaming down his face and he’s not sure why, but Jerome is eagerly kissing his wet skin with an open mouth. When Bruce’s body begins to go slack a hand grasps his chin and turns his face, and then Jeremiah’s tongue is sliding up his cheek, too.

Ravenous, he thinks distantly.

So ravenous for everything that Bruce could and could not offer.

Jerome’s fingers slip out of him and Bruce is tugged off of Jeremiah’s softening cock. A moan falls out from between his lips as he’s shifted, twisted to brace on his hands and knees. Jeremiah’s pale face and red lips and dangerously glimmering eyes come back into view, Bruce’s elbows propping him up on either side of his shoulders.

“Gorgeous,” Jeremiah breathes, his hands resting on the small of Bruce’s back. “And ours.”

“Tell us you’re ours, Bruce,” Jerome demands, rubbing himself along the cleft of Bruce’s ass. “Tell us, tell us, tell us,” his voice warps, darkens, turns sinister. Bruce’s head is full of microphone feedback—it hurts to listen to him—more tears cloud his eyes, dripping onto Jeremiah’s besotted face.

“I’m yours,” he agrees, shuddering, unable to flee from the pain in his head. “I’m yours, I promise.”

Jerome thrusts inside all at once and Bruce drops his face to muffle a scream against Jeremiah’s shoulder. Jerome is wild and savage, snarling out loving praise as he fucks into Bruce hard enough that Bruce feels like he’s going to bruise. Jeremiah’s hands skim along his back. Jerome’s hands dig into his hips. ~~Another set of hands grips his waist. Another set of hands pets his hair.~~ The pace is brutally fast but Jerome never seems to slow down, and eventually Bruce can feel his cock start to fill up with blood again.

Jerome’s fingers twitch against him, his nails cut deep enough that Bruce is almost certain that they’re scratching against bone. Bruce shifts, too hot, too full, too sensitive, too tightly wound, and the angle changes slightly. The next time Jerome drives into him Bruce’s is left gasping, breathless against Jeremiah’s shoulder.

“You’re making him feel so good.” He can hear Jeremiah say. His face burns. “Do it again. I want to see if he can come just from getting fucked.”

“Greedy,” Jerome chides. “This is for Bruce.” His voice shifts as he says Bruce’s name. He sounds drunk. He sounds lovesick. He sounds like he’d steal Bruce away if he could. He pulls back and slams into Bruce, and Bruce’s dick strains in the open air between his and Jeremiah’s bodies. “Not for you. You just want him to come all over you.”

“Is that so wrong?” Jeremiah asks breathlessly. Nails scratch along Bruce’s back. ~~Nails scratch against his scalp.~~ “It’s been too long, brother. I’ve missed him.”

I can hear you, Bruce thinks lightheadedly, but when he opens his mouth all he can do is squeal as Jerome’s dick slides against a spot that’s making him light up, molten heat pooling in his core, an unstoppable blaze being kindled inside of him.

He’s burning. Their cold hands are not enough to suppress the stifling heat that’s building.

“I know, brother,” Jerome’s voice is a hiss again. Sharp teeth skim along Bruce’s neck.

He bites. Bruce can feel his skin break, can feel blood begin to well and overflow, his mouth falls open and he calls their names as his vision goes blindingly white. He aches, he aches, he aches.

He comes.

He’s pressed between them. He’s where he belongs. His thoughts are filtering off into static. They praise him and adore him, but soon their voices fade. Bruce can no longer make out what they’re saying, but they sound sad. Lonely. Desperate. The darkening shadows are gone, lost in the light.

They are gone.

He is gone.

x-x-x

He wakes up with a start.

Voices, he remembers voices, urging him to come home as they so often did, and—

Bruce’s brow furrows, cupping a hand over his face. He’s sweating, his bedclothes damp and disguising, but thankfully it seems as if his fever broke in the night. He feels uneasy, but he so often feels uneasy after the dreams that he can hardly remember. He clears his throat, feeling parched.

He can taste a hint of something metallic at the back of his mouth.

As if in the night he’d almost coughed up blood.

Blood, he thinks.

Nails, he thinks.

Teeth, he thinks.

~~Too wide smiles, too many teeth. Inhuman. Predatory. Possessive.~~

He curls in on himself, trying to grab onto the wisps of incomplete thoughts, but they filter through his fingers as if he’s trying to catch the wind with his bare hands.

It is just another strange dream, he tells himself ~~for some reason he doesn’t believe it~~ and he goes on with his life. 

A few months later he dreams of fire making silhouettes out of the skeletal remains of building. He hears screams and explosions and two terrible sets of laughter. He smells smoke and blood and something both sickeningly sweet and foul in the air.

He can’t remember if the voices said anything to him, but when he wakes up in a cold sweat he knows that if he’s not back in five years his city is going to be turned into a madhouse. 

Five years, the thought cycles in his head.

~~A cycle, a cycle, a five year cycle.~~

“Five years,” he says under his breath. There’s a sharp pricking in his head, as if he’s thought of something he’s not supposed to think of. 

Half a world away a pair of twin abominations begin their sleep.

Half a world away they dream of him.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear to God, guys, that someday I am actually going to write the DP that these horrible, smitten monsters and their boyfriend obviously want. (Not gonna lie, it may take a while. I've got a lot in the works right now. Have mercy upon me.)


End file.
